NY Gov. Cuomo will watch debate, won’t be in spin room

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will once again enter the national political bubble this evening when he watches tonight’s presidential debate at Hofstra University.

The governor, a Democrat, said Obama needs to “win” tonight. It doesn’t seem he will be in the official “spin” room after the town hall style forum, but Cuomo said he would be offering his thoughts.

A gubernatorial aide did not immediately clarify what that meant. Here’s what Cuomo said:

“I’m going to watch and cheer the president on, and then I’ll comment afterwards,” Cuomo said earlier. “I retain the right to see the performance before I determine the comment. So after I watch the debate — really a town hall, so it’s going to be different than the first one — then I’ll comment on it ,but I’m there to support the president.”

“This is going to be a different format, so I don’t know that you can do apples to apples,” he continued. “The first format was much different than this format. And I expect it’s going to be a different dynamic and there’s going to be less interchange between the two. I don’t know that you’re going to be able to compare the two. But to the extent people felt he wasn’t that engaged or he wasn’t expressive in the first debate, I’m sure that he’s going to correct that in this debate.”

The president has acknowledged his performance in the first debate was a bit lackluster, and Democrats are hoping tonight’s exchange will help re-energize the base.

Cuomo has not been an active Obama surrogate either in person or in interviews, and sometimes declines to weigh in with a strong Democratic Party stance, even when initially prompted to defend Obama’s tax proposals (the governor later clarified his support) or rate the GOP’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as its vice presidential nominee.